Venturing Out

The sun has finally come out. Just yesterday in fact. Everyone here has been very concerned for my well being and keep assuring me that Maine is not always foggy and rainy like it has been for the past three weeks. I will be honest, the weather was starting to get to me. I napped a lot and I was getting very sluggish. But, after just 2 days of sunshine I feel much better and back to my normal self.

Work has been great. I really enjoy my job. The politics of the members can be very touchy but it always makes me sit back and thing "Really, that's what you're worried about?". Silly rich folks.

We are taking advantage of two days off and have driven to Brunswick tonight. We are staying in a lovely Days Inn with a beautiful view of the Wal-Mart and Wendy's. In truth, it's a very nice Wal-Mart. It even has windows! Tomorrow we head to Freeport, ME for some outlet shopping. I love outlet shopping. I'm hoping to find some great post 4th of July clearance deals. Also, my sweet car gets it's 1st oil change tomorrow. I guess in car speak it's kind of like a first tooth or step or potty training. I'm so proud!

When we are back at home I will post pictures of the lunar moth that set up camp on our front porch for a few days last week. It was HUGE and very pretty. Justin and I have decided that if you would like to collect moths, our back porch is the place to do it. We have seen SO many varieties, shapes, sizes, and colors hanging out around our porch light. The cat enjoys them too although he reminds me of King Kong or Frankenstein or something with them. He wants to play with them and then gets mad when they die because he plays too hard.

Harry Potter comes out in nine days and I can't wait to see it. I have lots of reading to do before it comes out though, I'm only on book 4. On that note, I must tend to my FarmTown and hit the book!

G'night!

Soggy Maine

It has rained for at least 3 days straight. Now, I appreciate the fact that it's not 100 degrees like it is at home but I would like to see the sunshine sometime this week. Just a small request.

We open our restaurant on Wednesday. We are close to having everything put together. I should be writing a wine list right now. But I'm not. I have to have some personal time sometime, right? It seems like I have a good crew. They need a little TLC and polishing but I think it will be a great summer.

Island life is very interesting. Everyone knows everyone as well as everyone's business. It's like living in a small southern town but with a party line. I do have to laugh sometimes. I left North Carolina to work at this very posh country club in Maine. And there are some very prominent members here. However, I feel like I live more in the country now than I did at home. For instance, last week I was on the back deck looking out over the golf course and 2 VERY large deer were at the edge of the woods. I tried to take pictures to share but our camera doesn't zoom that far. Also, I'm not sure if I shared this or not, we live on a dirt road. Really! It's very quiet here. Even more quiet than home. Hubby and I sit on the back deck and listen to the silence and create the sound of crickets and frogs in our heads because that's what we're accustomed to hearing. It's that quiet. I'm quite enjoying it.

Also, on a side note, I am reading the Harry Potter series for the third time in anticipation of the July 15th premier of the 6th movie. I realize that this is in the middle of the week and that I will not be able to attend the midnight showing (small tears!) but Hubby has promised me that we will take an overnight trip to the main land as soon as we can so that I can see it. No one tell me how it is, I want to experience it for myself. I'm such a nerd.

All Moved In

Well, we've been away from NC for almost a week. We got to the island Thursday morning and unpacked the car. It was cold as wizz that night. I really think it was in the 40s that night and we had no heat on in the house and only one blanket on the bed. Friday we got up and headed back to the main land to shop ' til we dropped for house and office supplies. By Saturday afternoon we had Hubby's Subaru packed to the roof with $1,500 of supplies bought on the club's dime. That included some BEAUTIFUL flowers to spruce up the porch with and a couple of tomato plants for hubby. See below:

Office chairs and my new desk while it was in the box. Hubby put it together Sunday morning while I unpacked and put away our clothes. It's pretty super. I felt like I was on Design on a Dime or something!

Printer and chair mats. We just got the printer up today but it's still not hooked up to the computer. I've got to figure out the wireless networking.

The rest of hour household wares. I got to spruce up both bathrooms with new rugs and such, update the kitchen a little with some gadgets, and have SO MUCH FUN buying office supplies. Wee Hoo!

Here are Hubby's tomato and pepper plants. One is a Pineapple Tomato plant named "Pina", one is a Boxcar Willie Tomato named "Willie", and a Hungarian Hot Wax Pepper named "Hungry". We're so creative.

Here are my flower boxes. I've always wanted to have flower boxes filled to the brims with everything that looked pretty to me in all different colors. I can't wait to get them clamped up on the porch rails.

We started working today getting the Golf Club cleaned and organized. The dish machine was down and the Hobart man is coming in the morning. We've still got a large amount of stuff to do and all kinds of help coming in the morning. I finally ordered my wedding pictures today. YAY! It's about time! They'll be here next week along with my Harry Potter books (paperbacks of 1-6). I can't wait!

Well, Mommy's on the phone and Roxy has had a very bad hair day. :(

Travel Journal

It's day 2 of our journey to Maine. We are currently in Lewiston, ME at a very inconspicuous TraveLodge. It was SO inconspicuous in fact that we passed it twice before we found it. You see, the sign out front is a HUGE green sign saying "Chalet Somethingoranother" and you can only tell it's a TraveLodge if you happen to catch the red blinky sign underneath when it happens to say: TRAVELODGE. Silly us thinking that it would have a normal sign.

Anyway, back to the travel journal. We started out yesterday leaving our beautiful home in North Carolina behind. It was sad, I cried for half an hour. But, once we crossed into Virginia I put on my big girl panties and my Dirty Dancing soundtrack and trucked on down the road. The drive was nice. There was very little traffic and beautiful scenery. I saw a shopping center made just for men. There was a Tractor Supply, Camping World, and Gander Mountain all sharing one parking lot. All they need is a Harley Davidson dealership! The farms in Pennsylvania are to die for. If I could move my entire family and have my own Sundrop bottling plant and Bojangles on site, I'd move there forever. We hit a very nasty storm complete with hail when we crossed into Maryland but we stopped for a few minutes and avoided the bulk of the hail and then it was on the road again. Our stop for the first night was Scranton, PA. It was kind of a run down hotel but the employees were friendly and the room was pretty big so the animals had lots of room.

Today began with a bit of a rough start. You see, my cat is not a traveller. We purchased some tranquilizers for him to make the trip a little easier. But Satchel isn't a pill taker so the first one today was kind of a struggle. He only got about half of it. So, we gave him another one and then he was loosey goosey. He didn't give two hoots about getting in his pet taxi which was a stark difference from yesterday. The problem was that he was so loose that he urinated all in the pet taxi during the trip from the hotel room to the car. So, we stopped at a gas station down the road and Hubby went inside and got a newspaper (to line the pet taxi after it was clean) and a pair of gloves to keep us from getting icky. Hubby held Satchel up while I poured a bottle of water over him and the pet taxi. Cats do not like water. Cats that are drugged out on tranqs don't like water either, but they don't fight as hard. Now, I'm sure this was quite a sight to see in a gas station parking lot. Obviously a bottle of water isn't going to get a pet taxi completely clean so my car smelled slightly of cat pee all day. We did get an air freshener at a truck stop so then it smelled like pina coladas and cat pee. Also, the further north you get, the more inconsiderate the drivers. I had to learn to drive like a Yankee and I have to say, I don't like that side of myself. I tailgated. On purpose. Lord, I apologize and be with the starving Pygmees.

Finally we got to Lewiston. We have two more hours of driving tomorrow to get to the ferry as well as a trip to the grocery store. Then, we'll be in our summer home. What a nice ring that has. It so masks the fact that we are the paid help. No matter what gets me there, I still have a better view than a lot of people for the summer AND I don't have to pay for it. YAY! Well, it's almost bed time for tonight. To all my friends I left behind, I love ya!!

DAW

Creatively Off the Cuff

Many of you may remember that back in November I participated in an ACF sanctioned culinary competition. I was very nervous about it and prepared ridiculously for it and still came in last place. That was OK, there were quite a few chefs in the group who had much more kitchen experience that was much more recently used than mine. Not to mention that it was a "market basket" style competition where they give you a few surprise ingredients and you have one hour to make four servings of magic. My downfall was that I had 2 whole flounders in my basket and I had never worked with whole fish before. I did my best and, had I had more time, the chefs said that they really would have liked my plates. My components just didn't really have time to finish cooking because I took so much time taking apart those dadblatsted fish.

Well, tonight was another "cream of cabinet" night and had I had this conglomoration of ingredients and about 2 hours I would have rocked their socks off. Please forgive me that I don't have pictures to accompany this blog but I got in such a creative frenzy that taking pictures would have seriously cramped my style.

First was a pot of soup. I had rice, a can of chiles, a can of chicken, some fajita strips of beef and many many frozen veggies to work with. Of course they all got dumped in the pot. Now I'm not one to just add ingredients to water and let them go. I needed a base, some broth, some stock, some SOMETHING! But, I seemingly had nothing. Then I got to looking around and there were some chicken boullion cubes donated by Jennie's mommy. In the pot. A can of tomatoes. In the pot. Some tomato paste. In the pot. Some ketchup. In the pot. A can of somewhat tasteless Progresso Light (what was I thinking) Vegetable & Rice soup. All of that together with some water and voila - yummy soup. Of course I also seasoned with a few cloves of garlic and a couple of bay leaves. It's simmering as we speak for supper when Hubby gets home from work.

Then I made a broccoli rice casserole. This was simple enough. I boiled some rice and steamed some broccoli. Then, when those were done I combined them with some cream of mushroom soup, milk, and the last of the wedding pimiento cheese. I needed a topping so I found some whole wheat bread in the freezer, toasted it, and ground it up with the last of a pack of saltine crackers for bread crumbs. I then combined those crumbs with some melted Country Crock and Lawry's and baked at 375 degrees for an hour. Totally tasty.

My most prized creations however are my two ice box pies. The first I'm calling "Zero Dollar Pie". It turned into my loose rendition of "Million Dollar Pie". First I made a graham cracker crust with my last pack of cinnamon graham crackers and melted Country Crock. As that cooled I mixed up some vanilla pudding and added a little snack cup of pineapple tidbits I had. I spread this over the crust for layer number one. Then I mixed some up some Dream Whip and added about a cup and a half of flaked coconut. That became the next layer. Then as a garnishy type topping I smushed a 100 calorie pack of Honey Grahams and chopped up a Palmer Chocolate Orange and sprinkled it all over the Dream Whip Layer. I haven't eaten any yet but I think it should be tasty and plan to bring it to Briana & Jake's pool party this weekend.

The next pie I would like to call "Elvis Pie". I made a crust with crushed 'Nilla wafers and melted Country Crock. As that cooled I took all of the open peanut butter jars in the house and put them into the Kitchen Aid bowl to whip with lots of confectioners sugar and a little bit of milk. Once the crust had hardened I smushed this down over it as the bottom layer. Then I mixed some banana cream pudding and spread it over the peanut butter layer. See, peanut butter and banana was an Elvis favorite! Then I rounded up all of the stray Reese's cups I could find in the house (there weren't too many, they don't last long in these here parts) and chopped them for a topping. Then, as if there wasn't enough peanut butter in this lovely creation, I used the last of the chocolate covered peanut butter Ritz sandwiches from last weekend for garnish by standing them on their sides around the pie.

I was a cooking fiend tonight and I cannot wait to try the fruits of my labor. Not to mention I packed my lunch for tomorrow with various stray foods from around the house and came up with not only lunch but breakfast too!

Addendum: When trying this at home, don't get so excited to blog about it on the front porch that you forget about the soup, let it boil over and smoke up the house, completely burn the rice, and ruin. Just thought you might like to know the hazards. :(

Cream of Cabinet = Mexican Lasagna

On tonight's menu was "Cream of Cabinet". In my house this means "take what's already here and make a surprise". It's called "Cream of Cabinet" because it usually it involves a Cream of XXXX soup. But tonight there was no Cream o' Soup in the cabinet so I had to make do with what I had. So, I came up with my own version of Mexican Lasagna with what I had on hand.

First I lined an oval baking dish with 2 flour tortillas. This is the finale for these tortillas, it's the only two I had.

Then I thought to myself: "SELF! You need some cheese!" Sadly, my cheddar cheese supply was limited and what is a good casserole without cheese on the top? So, I decided to save it. Then, getting very desperate, I saw that I still had some pimiento cheese left from the wedding. It's cheesy, a little spicy, very creamy and very melty when heat is applied. So I gave it a shot and spread it on top of the lonely tortilla couple.

Budget home cooks everywhere have a vast supply of rice. It stretches, it plumps, it fills, and it's cheap. So, I made "mexican rice" by adding some paprika, chili powder, Lawry's, and tomato paste and spread it over the pimiento cheese in hopes that the creamy cheese spread would melt into the rice and create yumminess.

Now what is lasagna without layers? I know I said I was out of flour tortillas, and I am, but I also had a couple of whole wheat tortillas. I think they'll get along quite well with their larger, more refined cousins.

Something we always have a ton of in the Wilson house is salsa. Herdez to be exact. It's fresh tasting and it's cheap (if you buy it at Wally World) and it makes everything taste better!! It's almost as magical as gravy.

Now for the freezer layer. I had some black beans in the freezer so I thawed them. Then I got to hunting even deeper and found spinach. Then in the darkest depths I found white corn! I thawed them all out, mixed them up, and spread the mixture over the salsa. I know what you're thinking: "Black beans, check. Corn, makes sense. Spinach? Seriously? Spinach?" Truth is I figured that if anything would ruin this it would be the pimiento cheese and given the small amount of spinach I had, what could it hurt?

Now here I would normally have added more cheese but again, I was rationing. I didn't want to overkill with the pimiento cheese because that in itself was a long shot. But I needed a binder. Something creamy. My first thought: This TON of ranch dressing I have. But how would ranch flavoring go with what I had already? Not too good, not too good. (Subsequently, if you want to give this ranch a home, let me know) Then I remembered that we bought sour cream with the good intentions of a taco night. Well, I'm using up the last of the taco ingredients so I might was well invite sour cream to the party, right?

Now I know what you're thinking. You're thinking "Has she gone flaky? Where's the beef?" Well here it is. I would have made two layers but I only had a pound to begin with AND my dish wasn't all that deep. Drum roll please: Here's the beef. I seasoned it with chili powder, garlic salt, Lawry's, paprika, and tomato paste and added an onion while I was browning it. MMMMM.

Finally the moment we've all been waiting for: cheese! I sprinkled some shredded dairy goodness over the beef, then added some crunched up hard taco shells that I had in the freezer that had fallen on the floor several times and busted, and then more cheese. You can always add more cheese! Then I baked at 400 degrees for half an hour and ........... wait for it ............. wait for it.....

And it's brown, bubbly, and wonderful! Try this at home. Please do! And if not this recipe, make your own "Cream of Cabinet" creation and share!

Stuffed Like a Tom Turkey

I had a Daddy-Daughter date tonight. My last one before I leave for Maine. *sniff* We had Mexican food and it was quite tasty. Today was a seriously busy day. I met my replacement today. She's a very nice lady and I feel quite sure she's going to do my job much better than I ever did. But, that's great because I'm going to have a super job this summer and come back to find something I love to do. That's a promise!! Hold on, I'm so stuffed I need me some jammies!

All right, I am a million times more comfortable now. I am absolutely going to have to get back on the Weight Watchers wagon. My skinny jeans that had become my comfy every day jeans are now my skinny jeans once again. I am so glad that this week is only a 4 day work week. Next week will be so busy because of period close that it'll be over before I know it and then it will be time to pack and move! I'm kind of nervous about it. Very excited but I'm just such a home body that I'm not sure how I'll do that far away. It feels like I'm leaving for college all over again. I just have to remember that college was a wonderful adventure and that this will be too. I mean, I met Hubby in college and this time I get to take him with me and live and work with him. What could be better than that?

I have found that going to bed early and catching some z's before Hubby comes home is a wonderful idea. I was able to get out of the bed extremely well this morning. I hope tomorrow morning proves the same.

I've decided to re-read all of the Harry Potter books before the movie comes out this summer. I'm going to have to buy the first 4 again because my younger sister still has my copies. It's no problem, they're pretty cheap. I'm super excited about the movie and love that ABC family is having a Harry Potter weekend this weekend and will be showing clips of "The Order of the Pheonix". Can't wait!!

Well, time to head to bed and get a little nap before Hubby gets home.

G'night!

DAW

Lazy Sunday

We've had a wonderful weekend. Hubby was actually off work all day Friday and Saturday and also this morning.


Friday night we went to a housewarming party for Nick and Sarah. It was absolutely a great time. We made some awesome PW recipes - Pastor Ryan's Dutch Oven Bread and Oatmeal Crispies. I made a little twist on the Crispies: I didn't have plain Quick Oats so I used instant oatmeal packs - Apple Cinnamon flavor. It gave instant kicked up yumminess. Also, in order to use only things we had in the house, I made these delicious chocolate dipped Ritz crackers w/ PB.
Yummy!


Here's Hubby making the bread. He loves the Kitchen Aid. He's not the only one. It beats the pants off a hand held mixer. It's not quite as convenient but that's just the price you pay for culinary fabulosity. Anyway, the bread was great. Check out P-Dub's site for the recipe. If you don't have fresh herbs to put in the dough we highly recommend Mrs. Dash. It's amazing! On the way to the par-tay we stopped at Whole Foods and picked up some nummy cheeses. One was from a dairy in Galax, VA. Hubby read that the cheese is so good that the chef of the French Laundry buys cheese from there. It was pretty good! The kind we got had a nice sharpness to it but it wasn't a hard cheese. Perfect for herby bread. Also we got some nice cream Port Salut. I love love loved that one. Hubby's making me a bit of a cheese snob. But no one, I repeat no one, will ever make me stop loving Velveeta cheese cubes at a party. It's high class! Anyway, we had a great time hanging out with my old friends. I'm so happy for Sarah & Nick and absolutely hate that we'll miss their wedding. We'll have to rock out the wedding gift!!

Saturday was a great day. We hung out, cleaned a little bit, planted some new flowers out front, watched a lot of TV, and did a little household shopping. We very rarely get a full, unadulterated day of nothing but each other's company. It's precious time I wouldn't trade anything for.

This morning we went to church for our special Memorial Day service. It's was very touching and I felt like it was very honoring of all of our members who once served or are currently serving in the armed forces. I cried a lot, it was very special. Then it was home for a very nice pot of chicken & dumplings. Again, nummy. Of course this was all after we had to chase a BIRD out of our HOUSE this morning. You see, the vent for our dryer on the side of the house seems like a nice little cozy place for birds to try and nest. The thing is that they get in and they sometimes fly all the way down the vent to the hose that connects the dryer to the vent in the wall and then they get stuck. Then they get very very mad and make lots and lots of noise at very early hours of the morning. So, when we woke up this morning we heard the critter just flapping and scratching and pitching quite a fit. Hubby thought it would just be a wittle bitty birdy so he got a plastic shopping bag to catch it when he took the tube off of the dryer and then let it go free outside. Well, when he took the tube off the bird did fly into the bag but then Hubby realized it was very big about the same time it flew itself out of the bag. Then it made a couple of laps around the house, scared the cat to run in a frenzy under the bed, scared the fool out of the dogs, made one more lap,a nd then flew outside. Of course most of you should know, I don't mess with birds unless they are dead and edible so I didn't want to have much to do with this process. Well, about half way through the fiasco I thought the bird was out of the house so I came out of my safe place in the bedroom. Then I found out otherwise and ran in the bedroom and while I was trying to shut myself in I started screaming to Hubby "Get the BB gun, Get the BB gun!". Fat lot of good that advice was, the BB gun was in the very room that I was shutting the bird and ultimately Hubby out of to keep myself safe and all the while praying "Dear God, please don't let your beautiful creature poop all over my house!" Finally the bird found it's way out of the back door, didn't poop in my house and didn't scratch or peck either mine or Hubby's eyes out. Thank the Lord!!

Now Hubby is off to work and I'm very bored. I would give anything to send all of the pictures that we currently have from various family members' cameras to have 1 hour printing done so that I could start filling frames and photo albums and most of all scrapbook. Hubby gave me the COOLEST scrapbooking set for my birthday with all sorts of cool stuff in a super awesome carrying case and by golly, I want to use it!!! But the cheapest 1 hour deal I can find is still $60 and it's probably too late on a Sunday anyway and we need that $$ for other projects. So then I thought I may take $20 to the Dollar Tree and have some fun. But then, what do I need to buy more stuff for? We're leaving in 2 weeks and the last thing we need is more stuff.

So I guess what I should do is some laundry, straightening, dishes, and packing. But what fun is that and how does that fit in with a Lazy Sunday?

Well, I managed some laundry and a little straightening in the kitchen including running the dishwasher. Then I got a call from Hubby. The good news: his tenure at his place of employment ends one day earlier than we anticipated. The bad news: he has to work every single night until then. Closing. CLOSING! Which means he gets home way late. Like, he's not leaving work tonight until a quarter 'til midnight. And I work during the day. So I don't get to see him for very many waking hours for the next five days. But, at least I will get to see him at night when he gets home. Maybe I'll nap in the evenings so that I can be up when he gets home and spend some time with him. That sounds like a plan. But, I didn't do that today so I must run and get some z's. G'night!

DAW

The Sounds of Silence

MOTIVATION! Where's my motivation? I think it's in a sewer somewhere. I've got to get to working. Later, when I can read my memory card I will tell the story of the most archaic microwave I've ever seen in my life. It exists in this office enclave in which I've been working and actually achieved mostly heating up my breakfast of corned beef and cabbage. Laugh if you like, it was tasty.

**************************************************

So, they've hired someone into my position already. I found out through mass communication e-mail. How lovely. Quite honestly I'm a little intimidated. She sounds like she is 2000% more qualified to do this job that I am. Although I guess that's a good thing. I guess it's about time that they hired someone that actually had the full training to do this junk. She's probably going to think "Good gracious this girl is an idiot!" And if she does, so what, I'll be getting paid to have a killer view. Nanny Nanny Boo Boo and all that jazz.

Husband, husband, where is my husband? I've tried to call him and to no avail. My guess - he's outside with our doggies enjoying the beautiful day before he has to go to work. Lucky ducky. And he has the next two days off which I'm pretty excited about. I love quality time. No matter how I'm feeling about work or anything else all I need is one great big back cracking hug from him and I'm all better. Cheesy I know. Grab a glass of wine and you'll feel right at home.

Tonight I had Pork Stiry Fry with Rice. It was tasty and I yet again channeled P-Dub and decided to share the recipe with step by step pictures. Keep reading, there's a funny story in the middle.
So first I got out all of these ingredients for a family portrait. Lemon juice & butter were also used but not able to make the group shot. In other words, forgot all about it until I needed it.

Right off the bat I got the rice boiling. About a cup of rice to 2 3/4 Cups of water. I added had 2 C. water and 3/4 C. of chicken broth just because I had a can open in the fridge I needed to use. Hubby would scoff at measuring the water for the rice. He has this trick where he sticks his finger down to the bottom of the pot and measures it somehow. I don't really know how to do it.

Here's the pig. "Boneless ribs". It's a really cool cut of pork because it has the "dark meat" which is much tastier than the "whiter" and dryer parts. It's really inexpensive to boot.

Cube it up like an inch to an inch and a half and then season it up good, real good. Just S&P does the trick.

Heat an eye with a non-stick wok to medium-high. Don't have a wok? Any big ole pan'll do! And don't put the dogs outside. This will come into play later.

Add about two tablespoons of the veggie oil. Let it get hot. Real Real Real hot.

You may not be able to tell but I sliced half an onion pretty thin whilst the oil is heating up.

2 cloves of garlic minced. On a side note this is one of Hubby's fave knives. It keeps a great edge and has a nice light bamboo handle. It's a good thing we live together or I'd steal that thing!!

I've got to get a better camera!! Anyway, chop the green pepper. This dish would be so much prettier if it was a red pepper but we are being budget conscious and the greenies are so much cheaper that we just eat a lot of really green food.

Finally the oil is rocket hot. Be careful that it doesn't splatter but go ahead and add the pork. If it doesn't scare you a little of getting burned when you add it, the oil isn't hot enough yet. It's gotta be that hot. Your first instict will be to stir. DON'T DO IT. LEAVE IT ALONE!

I mean it. Leave it alone until it gets white around the edges. Then check a piece to make sure it has a pretty brown sear. The flip flip flip! Flip until all the brown is up and all of the pink is down.

Round about this time (depending on how many pictures you take if you're a nerd like me) the rice should look like this. Most of the water should have cooked out and when you bite a grain or two it should be 95% done. Pull it off the heat and cover it up. The steam in the pot will cook it the rest of the way without letting it get all sticky. Remember, we're not making sushi here. And if you hear your dogs barking in the back yard right about now, go check on them.

So while that pork's a gettin' brown go ahead and cut up the rest of your veggies. The great part about stir fry is that you can stir and fry anything that's in the refrigerator that sounds tasty to you. I have mushrooms, zucchini, and yellow squash here. Carrots, snow peas, water chestnuts, etc. would also be great here. Again, check on the barking dogs.

So once the pork is all browned up on all sides go ahead and add those veggies. I have a couple that I kept to the side and I'll explain that in a minute. Oh, and if it sounds like someone is knocking on your back door but you're not sure if it's the dog or a knock, assume it's a knock.

Here are the stray veggies. Cabbage and frozen broccoli. I kept them out because they both let out a lot of water when they cook and they'll take a little longer. So, I par steamed them in the microwave.

While the microwave hums you a tune add the butter, lemon juice, soy sauce to taste, about a teaspoon of chili sauce, and 2 teaspoons of hoisin. Mmm mmm good. Stir it all together. Then when the phone rings, answer it ASAP. It's Hubby. Then when there's a knock on the back door, answer it, it's the neighbor. He's come to tell you that Matriarch Canine has made a break for it for the second time this week. Before you go to make a futile chase after Matriarch Canine turn off the stove and move the pan off the heat. Take my word for this. Then go chase after Matriarch Canine and keep Offspring Canine from wrapping around your legs and forcing you to almost go face down in a pile of poo. The phone will ring again at this point, it will be Hubby in quite a hurry to tell you something while he's at work. Go ahead, talk to him. Matriarch Canine will let herself back in the house, 20 feet of cable dragging in behind her, like she never went anywhere at all. Not that any of this happened to me, oh no.

So, once the cabbage and broccoli have steamed just a bit, drain it and add it to the wok. See why I say you need a big pan? Make it a huge one.

Keep stirring it all together until the cabbage is a little wilty but still bright green. Then breathe a sigh of relief. It's finally time to eat and both Matriarch and Offspring are inside the house never to see the beautiful fresh air outside until Hubby is home to take them.

Then you just have to spoon some stir fry over that rice that should be steamed to perfection by now. Make this, make it soon, it's so tasty.

DAW

Nose to the Grind Stone

Wow, what an odd day it has already been at it's only 10:31! I almost got side swiped on Bryan Blvd. this morning on my way to work by a blue Toyota Camry. Yes I saw you you hateful inattentive blond old woman! You almost hurt my car and me! This after I just had a dream last night that I rolled the car down a hill and not on it's 4 wheels. Very scary. Almost had to change my pants. Then I got to work and have been combating various fires since I got here.

I had supper with my lovely mommy (pictured left). It was a truly good time. I am very very close with my mom. In fact one of her co-workers said that we sounded more like 2 teenage girls giggling than a mother and daughter. We are very silly you see. In fact my mom's motto is "Never loose your goof!" It's a very good motto that both my husband and I whole heartedly agree. My mom really is my one of my best friends and I am not ashamed to say that I am just like her.

Below is our supper. Hubby made yummy soup.

And he also took this picture of more of my pretty flowers. Love 'em! But he's home now so I must be off and spend quality time.

Good Night! DAW

Cold Nose, Yummy Supper, Lonely Night

I am down to 12 days left at work. Bless the Lord I just don't know how much more I can stand to be there. It's not so bad, I'm just ready to go. You know what I mean, like when you're on your last day of vacation. You don't want to leave, you've had a great time, but once you've packed you're just ready to be home.



I had a lovely supper tonight. Corned Beef, Cabbage & Potatoes. Yummy Yummy Yummy!



As you can probably tell from the title Hubby is at work. Being that it's almost 11:00 he should be on his way home within the next hour. I really should have blogged earlier but I had a few technical difficulties. You see, I started out the night playing with the background on the blog. Thanks be to my wonderful sister in law Briana for the links. Check out Breezy Bride's blog for more details. Well, then I got, shall we say, crafty. Bad idea. I'm over the age of 20 and without a computer programming and web page design degree I am officially too old to mess with this stuff. I tried to download a photo editing software so that I could be all savvy and do editing wonders to my pictures. I of course had to use a free one because I'm twenty something and fabulous which in layman's terms means broke. So, I download and open a picture and start to play. All I did was make the picture look worse. Then I tried to make a banner for my blog. No such luck my friend, it was awful and I even downloaded the largest chunk of it. Then I wanted to try and change the font on my blog using really cool fonts that I found on various websites. Now, I did take an HTML class as a young whipper snapper but all of that information left my head as soon as my tests were graded. In short, no cool fonts. (Bri, what the crap do I do?) Throughout all of this I apparently downloaded some icky STDs onto my computer because for at least an hour I had no internet. So, 1 system restore, 1 Spybot search & destroy, 2 system immunizations, and 1 Spybot update session later, I am finally able to say I lived to blog about it.



Side note: I kind of want to vomit right now. I'm watching Ripley's Believe it or Not and there is this 110 lb girl who had her back skin pierced with hooks that they then attached to an armored truck so that she could pull said truck 400 feet by just walking forward. It was about the most disgusting thing I've ever seen. I'm sure I've seen more disgusting but none of those things come to mind right now.



Shout out to all of my bridesmaids: Who's missing a handkerchief? It's at my house.

Also, did anyone leave a pair of Acuvue contact lenses? They are at my house too. I imagine they belong to one of by beautiful sisters in law. We will bring them down when we come down for the pool party.


Hubby called just a few minutes ago. He'll be heading home soon. I am so glad for that. I am very cold, kind of bored, and slightly lonely.

The Great Pretender

So here I am at work. At a Director's desk. Answering the Director's phone. Pretending to be a department director. I hope this charade doesn't have to last long because truth be told I wouldn't want this job if my life depended on it. I am also suffering with severe Short-Timer's Disease. It is a chronic condition that typically appears in individuals who have put in their final notice and their current place of employment. Symptoms include fatigue, listlessness, attention deficit disorder, lack of motivation, and in most cases generalized not giving a hoot. I have a rather long and very official looking to-do list. If my boss asks me what I have going on I can refer to it and sound very very busy. However when it's just me in the office by myself I have yet to get jack-diddly-squat done. As long as I look busy and get things done by the deadline, right?

Hubby and I went to see Angels & Demons last night. For those of you who have read the book: this movie will hack you off to no end! Ron Howard took some serious film liberties with the story that in my own opinion really lessened the suspense of the story all together! Hubby and I both read the book while on our Honeymoon and were ecstatic to see that the movie was coming out so soon. It was especially exciting to know that the opening coincided with my birthday weekend. Now, we've had the discussion before about how we typically always think that the movie is NEVER as good as the book. Yet we subject ourselves to this torture time and time again. Read the book and "Oh, can't wait to see the movie!", see the movie, "Oh, the book was so much better". Now this is not to say that if you didn't read the book you won't enjoy the movie. If you haven't read the book you will certainly enjoy the movie. Probably much more than I did. And for those of you who think Dan Brown is a satanic heretic out to destroy religion I would like to point this out to you: while I don't know about The DaVinci Code I can say that in Angels & Demons he is trying to use fiction to bridge the gap between science and God. His main point here (by my own interpretation) is that both worlds can co-exist and even promote each other instead of one disproving the other. Despite what the Southern Baptist Convention might say I do think that the man has a solid faith in God. I do doubt his faith in the Roman Catholic church from time to time. But he believes in God.

Have you ever been to Taco Bell and heard "We are all out of Mexican Pizzas"? It's heart shattering.

Also note worthy today -- For the second time in my life I saw an interstate completely desolate and clear. The first time former President George Bush was speaking in Charleston, SC and was on his way into town within the hour. Today Vice President Joe Biden is speaking at Wake Forest's graduation ceremony and I assume he was also on his way into town. It's an eerie experience. I would have stopped to take a picture to share but I 1) didn't have a camera, 2) was late for work, and 3) didn't really want someone to think I was a sniper casing the area. It was pretty cool to witness though. I did however, for the second time in my life, miss seeing the actual motorcade.

Does anyone have any suggestions on where to buy a new rain coat? I haven't actually had one since I was a child. I want the dressy kind, not the hiking kind.

Also, what's the deal with Twitter? I can't figure out it's purpose!

Here's Hubby enjoying the mack daddy deck chairs we have. If you don't have one I would highly recommend it. If you don't have a deck to sit in them on I would highly recommend getting such a deck and then the chairs. They're so heavenly for enjoying a nice afternoon. We are at the moment outside doing just that. I got home a little early today after a fiasco of a time trying to get my name changed. Actually it wasn't so horrible, I'm just a doofus. The Social Security Office is a terrible place though. It smells like dirty arm pits.

Tonight Hubby and I will first clean the kitchen as it as a serious den of iniquity. I will include before and after pictures later on. And then we will see what our two culinary minds can do with HAMBURGER! I might have pictures of that as well. We just have to see.

Late night addendum: I would like it noted that Hubby just killed my Mii. I was walking along my tightrope as pretty as you please on the Wii Fit and he came right up behind me and tickled me until I lost my balance and fell off. He killed his Nintendo wife. I need to call the Super Mario Brothers to straighten his butt out!

Celebration Summation

As promised here is short pictorial view of my birthday celebration with Moma and Daddy. Hubby and I went to my parents' home away from home: the campground that is a short 15 minute drive from their house. We had a scrumptios dinner of T-bones and sweet potatoes which was followed by leftover wedding cake turned birthday cake and home made banana-pineapple ice cream



Here I am, cutting my wedding cake again. This time I didn't end up with any icing on my nose.







Hubby and I by the lake. It was a beautiful day. I really enjoyed spending time with my parents and their friends. I am thankful for the time we got to spend with them since I will be so far away this summer. I am so lucky to have such a great relationship with my parents and also that they love Hubby so much!




On a side note I got to enjoy my flowers a great deal while taking out the trash yesterday as I cleaned. Here are some pictures of some exceptionally beautiful ones.







Now we are off to the Sticky $3 Theater in town to see Angels & Demons. It's not the nicest movie theater however it is inexpensive and if the movie is good enough you get transported to a whole other world and get to ignore the fact that your shoes stick to the floor.




It's back to work tomorrow. Ick. I have to pretend to be a General Manager for a week and probably won't see my office until next Monday. I guess it will be nice to have a change of pace but I will miss my lunch buddies and will have to endure a whole week of the Hypochondriac Secretary. Pray for me.

DAW

Feelin' Mighty Fine

Today I will put forth my first effort in my own version of "photo-journalism" of my day to day activities. Let me know what you think!

I've had quite a wonderful birthday today. It began with Hubby cooking my breakfast before he went to work. Very tasty. There was an onslought of birthday wishes from friends and family throughout the day which I greatly enjoyed and am very thankful for. I made at least 40% good on my gift of a clean house to myself.

I began in the bedroom. Please note that the clothes at the end of the bed are clean but have just not been put away.

After an hour - I was delayed by a wonderful chat with my Grandmother - this is the finished result. Our vaccuum needs a new bag so I couldn't get the floor but it's not bad!

Then I attacked the bathroom. This task wasn't quite as daunting since I had sort of straightened up at one point this week but everything still needed quite a scrub down. Jennie was on the phone with me for most of this task.

Ah, the fruits of my labor yet again are so sweet!

Then came the living room. I swear, somewhere between the toxic waste dump and the pile of discarded shoes there is a coffee table in there. I had the least amount of motivation to get this done. I tried to put it off by having lunch. Then I tried a nap but God decided to remind me that I should hop to it with a sweet Happy Birthday call from Aunt Judy.

I told you I had a coffee table. Little did I know I also had a floor. Please cue the Hallelujah Chorus.

After all of this was done I decided I had worked hard enough for one birthday. Then I got a lovely visit from my next door neighbor to let me know that the matriarch canine of the family - Missy - had gotten loose from her line outside. Now, had this been Sirius, her gangly yet lovable offspring, I wouldn't have worried. But Missy is more of a "free spirit" shall we say. She's led me on one particularly embarrasing chase in Maine last year and forced me to run barefoot in pink Care Bear pjs in front of members who were ready to enjoy a lovely round of golf. So, needless to say I was a bit worried. To my delight when I opened the back door there she sat! I was geared for her to bolt when I stepped out of the door so I first tried calling her to me instead of launching after her. I was quite overjoyed when she listened and trotted right into the house.

Hubby got home a little after 4:00 and then it was truly time for the birthday festivities to begin. We had a scrumptious supper with my parents at the campground. I will chronicle the second part of my birthday tomorrow. It's late, Hubby is ready for bed and quite honestly, so am I!

DAW